Refuge
by Red River
Summary: "She's my mom," Spencer murmured, and Aaron couldn't help thinking how young that word made him seem. "But sometimes it's like there's…almost none of that person left." In the aftermath of the Fisher King, Hotch flies to Las Vegas to bring Reid home, and tries to make something new out of all their broken pieces. Episode tag to S2E1, "The Fisher King;" friendship or pre-slash.


A/N: I received a lot of great encouragement after posting "Vigil," my first CM episode tag, so I thought I'd post another one. This centers on Hotch and Reid as well, and is set after the end of the Fisher King two-part arc. I'm planning at least a few more episode tags, so stay tuned.

Episode tag to Season 2, Episode 1, "The Fisher King." Reid and Hotch centric, friendship - maybe pre-slash.

Note: I've made one change to Hotch's canon storyline in this: I always thought it didn't make sense for Haley to hang on as long as she did, so in this story, she and Hotch were already separating before the Fisher King, and she leaves with Jack during that case. It's a pretty minor story point, so hopefully it's not confusing at all.

Comments and feedback are always appreciated. Please enjoy.

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**Refuge**

Aaron Hotchner hadn't remembered the McCarran International Airport being quite so large. Standing at the point of intersection between two terminals, an endless whirl of arriving and departing passengers navigating around him, he looked out the high glass windows at the distant skyline of the Vegas Strip and wondered if they'd done some remodeling, or if it had just been that long since he actually walked through an airport, instead of taking a car right from the tarmac. Too little sleep and two cups of bad coffee on the 757 from Virginia had given him a headache, and the clatter of bells from the terminal slot machines wasn't helping. Still he stayed where he was, searching the faces of the incoming passengers making their way through the security checkpoint. Spencer Reid had agreed to meet him right here, and Hotch didn't want to risk missing him, not even to sit down for a few minutes. His feet ached inside his Oxfords, numb from days without taking off his shoes.

The plane ride had been quiet. Though he was the only one aboard who could have known what had transpired over the last forty-eight hours, it felt like the whole world was reeling from what they'd just gone through, even the city below him dull and mute as they took off into the gray dawn. Most of the passengers slept or kept their voices low, the flight attendants whispering so as not to disturb the hush. He spent the flight staring out the window, cycling through images that wouldn't let him rest: the darkening rag sliding down Elle's wall, her blood getting up under his fingernails; Jason Gideon's crumpled face as he sat slumped in a hospital chair, looking his age for the first time in Hotch's memory; the silence in the entryway as he pushed open his front door and found the whole house dark, half-empty, all the boxes and suitcases he'd helped Haley pack just simply and suddenly gone. He'd stood in the doorway for a minute, in the palpable emptiness, the streetlights at his back splaying his shadow across the floor, and wondered if that was how she'd felt, all those nights he was away, the house around her nothing but a hollow shell. He'd never noticed how big it was before.

He wasn't even sure why he'd gone home; he had a plane to catch. He had only stopped in to change his shirt, abandoning his suit for a long gray sweater over a clean button-down. He'd just had a sense somehow that Spencer Reid didn't need to be met at the airport by Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner. He needed a friend.

A pair of haunted brown eyes heading toward him told him he was right.

Hotch lifted one hand, a signal and a wave, and Reid returned the gesture, scrunching his shoulders in as he navigated through the passengers spilling out of the security checkpoint. Hotch couldn't help thinking how fragile he looked, thin and pale in his wrinkled clothes, his hair mussed on one side as if he'd slept against a window. The circles under his eyes were darker than Hotch had ever seen them. He wondered suddenly, as he watched Reid slide through the gaps between bodies, trying to stay out of the way, whether he should have picked a different meeting place—he hadn't thought about how many people there would be here. But it was too late for that, because Reid was standing in front of him now, one hand gripping the strap of his shoulderbag and the other fidgeting in his pocket, his whole body curled in to make him as small as possible. A strained smile flitted across his wan face.

"Sorry you had to come all the way out here, Hotch."

Aaron Hotchner pressed his lips together and let his head fall to one side. "Spencer," he said softly, deliberately. "It's good to see you."

He pressed a careful hand to the younger man's shoulder, giving him a moment to draw away—and then, when he didn't, pulled him into a gentle hug, loose enough for an easy escape if he wanted it. Reid went stiff at first, every tendon in his body tense—then he lifted his arms and returned the embrace, much tighter than Hotch had expected, his fingers clenched into the weave of the gray sweater as if he was afraid of being shaken off. Hotch squeezed him back and tried not to think about how frail Reid felt in his arms. He drew back after a long moment but kept his hand on Reid's elbow.

"Have you eaten anything? We could get breakfast before we get on the jet. We're not in any hurry."

He had meant it as an open invitation, tried to convey with a look that Reid could have all the time he needed, for whatever he needed. Reid was shaking his head before he even finished speaking.

"I just want to go home," he said, looking up at Hotch with dark, troubled eyes.

The frankness in his voice cut Hotch to the bone. He offered a slow nod in response. "Right. Well, there's always instant coffee on the jet. And plenty of sugar."

Reid's smile was so thin Hotch felt he could see right through him.

He carried Reid's bag the rest of the way to the jet. It wasn't the weight he wanted to take off his shoulders, but it was all he could do.

By the time he had instructed the pilot and pulled the door to the cockpit closed, Spencer had chosen his seat. He had rejected the couches, tucking himself up in one of the chairs around the table farthest in the back, his right shoulder pressed to the wall and his arms wrapped around one bent knee, pulling his body into a tight knot as his glassy eyes stared out at the runway. There was no ignoring the psychology of his choice: the most defensive spot on the plane, the table and chairs massed around him like walls, his own body twisted into his shield. Aaron drew the curtain closed between the cockpit and the rest of the plane, to give them privacy if the copilot poked her head out for coffee. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the small onboard refrigerator and then made his way down the aisle.

He hesitated for an instant when he reached the table, considering whether he should put Spencer's bag next to him instead of taking the seat himself, if the young man would appreciate one more wall between them—but Spencer's gaze lifted to his face and his body unfolded, his knee sliding back under the table as he turned from the window. Aaron offered him a small smile, depositing the shoulderbag across the table and sliding into the aisle seat, and then letting out a soft breath as Spencer shifted so they could share the armrest. Whatever he was protecting himself from, Aaron was gratified to know it wasn't him.

They didn't speak during takeoff, just listening to the rumble of the wheels on concrete and then the drone of the engines hitting the air, the whistle of the wind beyond the windows. Once they were level again, Aaron uncapped the water bottle and set it in front of them; Spencer tucked his index finger into the hollow of the cap and slid it idly across the table, the plastic hissing as he drew constricted figure-eights. _Anxiety. Compulsion_. He didn't say anything until the view outside had transformed from city into slow-rising mountains, the plane carrying them steadily out of Nevada—and even then, sitting right next to him, Aaron barely heard him, the words getting lost in the familiar hum of the plane in motion.

"She kept forgetting why we were here."

Aaron turned his head, studying the younger man's face. Even after knowing him for years, he was still astonished by how expressive Spencer Reid could be: they spent every day picking through the boneyards of monsters, confronting images Spencer had no choice but to carry with him for the rest of his life, and yet there was nothing flat in his affect, no distance in his over-bright eyes as he blinked too fast, spinning the bottle cap around his fingertip. His brow was furrowed, as if a great storm of emotion were breaking inside of him and he was fighting to keep it down—but Aaron felt he could see through all of it, from the quiver in his hands to the edge of a smile twisting his lips up at one corner, the smile he often wore when he was exceptionally sad. Aaron wished for even a glimpse of his other smile, the one that accompanied figures and statistics and lines of Middle English poetry, always a little left of the topic of conversation. Over the last few months, he'd grown very fond of that smile.

Spencer hunched his body against the seatback, staring fixedly at the bottle cap whirling around and around on the tip of his finger. "She has trouble remembering where she is when she's out of the hospital. One of her therapists said it's like her memory's a Rolodex, and she can't, um…can't really control what page she's on."

He spun the cap faster and faster, until Aaron couldn't stand to watch it anymore, this manifestation of his frayed nerves—he reached out and laid a soft hand over Spencer's, stilling his movement, and Spencer's hand snapped open under his, the bottle cap skittering across the table to disappear into the facing seats. Spencer took a deep breath and then closed his hand again, squeezing just the tips of Aaron's fingers.

"She's my mom," he murmured, his voice breaking on the last word; Aaron couldn't help thinking how young that word made him seem. "She's the one who…who read me Chaucer and Sidney and Thomas Malory. But sometimes it's like there's…almost none of that person left." Spencer pushed himself up on his elbows, his shoulder brushing Aaron's as pursed his lips in a wretched smile. "It's sort of funny, um…I remember everything about her, and she—she remembers almost nothing about me."

Aaron squeezed his hand again, softly because Spencer's fingers were skin and bone under his and he was so afraid of breaking something. He had wondered, for a moment, listening to the agent from the Nevada office explaining about the unexpected visitor on her way to the BAU, why Reid had never told him about his mother, even in the last few months as they'd been growing closer, closer than he had ever been to a coworker. The moment he saw Diana Reid for the first time, he understood. Telling anyone would have meant making it real. He brushed his thumb over the back of Spencer's knuckles and felt the divots between the bones, as deep as the pits beneath his sleepless eyes.

"How old were you?" he murmured, something in his gut twisting as Spencer ducked his head and jerked those eyes away from his.

"When it started, or when it got really bad?" he asked, though he didn't really seem to expect an answer. He tipped left just far enough that Aaron could feel the prickle of contact against his arm, the sweet almost-pressure of Spencer starting to lean into him but always, it seemed, holding something back, as if he were afraid to entrust himself to someone else's shoulder. Spencer raked his bangs back out of his face. "I remember there was this one day, uh…I was maybe four, I guess? She came to pick me up from kindergarten and, um…she got really nervous driving home. Like, her hands were clenching on the wheel, and she kept adjusting the mirrors, like there was something behind us that she just couldn't see. Finally she pulled over on the shoulder and just sat there, you know, shaking in the seat."

Aaron kept up the movement of his thumb, tracing the pad across the same swatch of skin over and over, trying to match the speed of the younger man's heartbeat. Spencer worked his mouth as if he was struggling to get the words onto his tongue. Then he looked up and Aaron almost jumped as their gazes locked, startled by the ache in his solemn brown eyes.

"She couldn't remember the way home. I tried to tell her, but she…she just sat there crying, rocking back and forth. We stayed there for three hours, before she was willing to drive home." His eyes slipped closed for a moment, and when they opened again all the tension was gone from his face, all other emotion drowned out by a wash of sadness. "I was so scared," he said, barely a whisper, and Aaron closed his eyes, too, just long enough to wonder why the most precious, exceptional people always seemed to be crafted by the most tragic circumstances. This time when he squeezed Spencer's hand he didn't loosen his hold, studying that soft, pale skin through the gap between his thumb and forefinger.

"I'm so sorry, Spencer," he said, keeping his voice low, too. Spencer grimaced like he was trying to smile. He wouldn't meet Aaron's eyes, though, his stare locked on the water jiggling inside the trembling bottle.

"The, um…the Institute of Psychiatry in London did this study. It turns out that women with more benign forms of schizophrenia…forty-three percent of them experience an acute increase in the severity of their symptoms after giving birth." Spencer took a deep breath, his body shuddering as he let it out again. "I can't help thinking…maybe I did this to her."

"Spencer, this isn't your fault," Aaron said, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost before he realized he was speaking.

Spencer turned his head to look up at him, and Aaron felt something very tight and painful lurch in his chest, because the mixture of hope and doubt painted across Spencer's face was just heartbreaking. He squeezed the younger man's hand as tightly as he dared, wishing suddenly that Spencer had chosen the couch, so he could wrap his arms around him. Aaron shook his head slowly.

"You can't blame yourself for this," he continued, holding Spencer's desperate gaze. "There are too many factors in the onset of schizophrenia…including age and genetic predisposition, and a number of others that are out of anyone's control. And, you have to remember that having a child was Diana's choice. Long before she met you, she decided you were worth it, no matter the cost." Spencer looked down at his lap, and Aaron bent forward so that he could still see his face, watching the play of emotions across his stormy countenance. "And Spencer…I know she doesn't always remember you. But in the moments that she does, I know she's very proud of you. And she isn't the only one."

Brown eyes dragged up to meet his again, and Aaron offered a small smile, little more than a twist at the corner of his mouth.

"You may feel you don't always fit in, but no one on this team would be the same without you. You are irreplaceable to us. To me," he added, and then wondered where it had come from, the urge to make this about himself, when it was supposed to be about Spencer. How precious Spencer was to all of them. Aaron let his hand slide away from Spencer's, turning on its side as it hit the table, and then very slowly intertwined their fingers, squeezing the younger man's hand though Spencer's fingers still hung, surprised, in the air above their joined palms. "You are priceless, Spencer," he said, and tried to remember the last time he'd held someone's hand like this.

For a long moment, Spencer was still, his body straining with just the effort of breathing in and out. Then all at once he relaxed, every scrap of tension vanishing from his form as he slumped down into his seat—his fingers folded over Aaron's hand in return, and he squeezed back, as hard as he had returned the embrace in the concourse, like he would never let go. Aaron wondered how long he'd been carrying that fear around with him, too afraid of the answer to ever voice the question. He soothed his thumb over the knuckle of Spencer's index finger, feeling the soft scratch of his calluses over that smooth skin. A few minutes passed before Spencer found his voice again, glancing up at Aaron through his untidy bangs.

"How's the team?"

Aaron nodded once, trying not to remember the dim lighting of the intensive care ward, and the sonorous beeping of machines tracking life in green and blue lines. "They're okay. Elle's still in the hospital, but…everything's going to be okay." He spared a brief moment to consider which of them he was really trying to reassure. Spencer gave a tentative smile that somehow only made him look more anxious.

"And what about…Haley and Jack?"

The memory of the empty house broke across Aaron's mind, but he fought it down, keeping his voice level. "They're gone." Then, before Spencer could get the wrong idea: "They left before we finished the case."

Spencer pressed his lips together, looking up at him with understanding eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's…" Aaron drew in a long breath, let it out slowly through his nose as he wondered how that sentence ended. "The _when_ doesn't really matter. It's sudden, but…maybe it's better this way. It's been over for a very long time." As he had on the flight to Nevada, he found himself trying to pinpoint just how long. Before Jack was born. Before Jack was conceived. Before they even met, probably, because they were destined to be such different people.

Spencer shifted in his seat—uncomfortable or just empathizing, Aaron wasn't sure. "You want to stay over tonight?" the younger man asked, and in the hopeful lilt of the invitation Aaron heard the offer of black coffee and old television and pizza that was half pepperoni and half mushroom, and maybe just a glimmer of that other smile, the one he missed so much though it had only been a few days. Aaron smiled back at him, laughing under his breath.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

They were quiet for a long time—long enough that the last of the sunrise disappeared and the sky beyond the window became an unbroken blue, and the landscape below flattened into rivers and fields, an endless patchwork of yellow and brown stretching out toward the haze of the distant horizon. At last Spencer sank down in his chair and pressed his head to Aaron's shoulder, his exhausted eyes finally flickering closed.

"Thanks for coming to get me, Aaron."

He liked the way that name sounded whispered into his sleeve.


End file.
